In accordance with the President’s proclamation, Governor Chris Sununu has
directed flags on all public buildings and grounds in the State of New
Hampshire to fly at half-staff following the death of Robert Joseph Dole,
effective immediately and until sunset on December 9, 2021.

https://www.governor.nh.gov/news-and-media/governor-chris-sununu-directs-flags-half-staff-accordance-presidents-proclamation-11

World War II and recovery

In 1942, Dole joined the United States Army’s Enlisted Reserve Corps to fight in World War II, becoming a second lieutenant in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. In April 1945, while engaged in combat near Castel d’Aiano in the Apennine mountains southwest of Bologna, Italy, Dole was seriously wounded by a German shell that struck his upper back and right arm, shattering his collarbone and part of his spine. “I lay face down in the dirt,” Dole said. “I could not see or move my arms. I thought they were missing.” As Lee Sandlin describes, when fellow soldiers saw the extent of his injuries, they believed all they could do was “give him the largest dose of morphine they dared and write an ‘M’ for ‘morphine’ on his forehead in his own blood, so that nobody else who found him would give him a second, fatal dose.”^[12]

Dole was paralyzed from the neck down and transported to a military hospital near Kansas, expected to die. Suffering blood clots, a life-threatening infection, and a fever of almost 109 degrees; after large doses of penicillin were not successful, he overcame the infection with the administration of streptomycin, which at the time was still an experimental drug.^[13] He remained despondent, “not ready to accept the fact that my life would be changed forever”. He was encouraged to see Hampar Kelikian, an orthopedist in Chicago who had been working with veterans returning from war. Although during their first meeting Kelikian told Dole that he would never be able to recover fully, the encounter changed Dole’s outlook on life, who years later wrote of Kelikian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide, “Kelikian inspired me to focus on what I had left and what I could do with it, rather than complaining what had been lost.” Dr. K, as Dole later came to affectionately call him, operated on him seven times, free of charge, and had, in Dole’s words, “an impact on my life second only to my family”.^[14]

Dole recovered from his wounds at the Percy Jones Army Hospital. This complex of federal buildings, no longer a hospital, is now named Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in honor of three patients who became United States Senators: Dole, Philip Hart, and Daniel Inouye. Dole was decorated three times, receiving two Purple Hearts for his injuries, and the Bronze Star with “V” Device for valor for his attempt to assist a downed radioman. The injuries left him with limited mobility in his right arm and numbness in his left arm. He minimized the effect in public by keeping a pen in his right hand, and learned to write with his left hand.^[15] In 1947, he was medically discharged from the Army as a captain.^[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dole

Sarah Josepha Hale, the Little Lady From NH Who Started Thanksgiving

I am grateful to live in a place where you can feel the history and tradition, and where sop many local people make sure that everyone can have a Thanksgiving dinner ~ Steve

SARAH JOSEPHA HALE
She was born Oct. 24, 1788 on a farm outside Newport, N.H., to Captain Gordon Buell and Martha Whittlesay Buell. Her parents believed in education for girls, and home-schooled Sarah.

Her father suffered from wounds inflicted during the American Revolution, which made farming difficult. In 1811, he bought a tavern on Main Street in Newport and called it The Rising Sun. Meanwhile, Sarah grew up and taught school.

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Sarah Josepha Hale, the Little Lady From NH Who Started Thanksgiving

Growing up in Newport, N.H., Sarah Josepha Hale hardly seemed likely to move a president, build a monument or influence a generation of American women.

Born into modest circumstances, she rose to the editorship of a popular women’s magazine. From that influential perch she promoted the Christmas tree, the white wedding dress and the Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie.

Sarah Josepha Hale wielded a powerful influence on domestic fashion and taste as a 19^th-century cross between Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey.https://82d07c9b876f70f1efc37181ecf76574.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

SARAH JOSEPHA HALE

She was born Oct. 24, 1788 on a farm outside Newport, N.H., to Captain Gordon Buell and Martha Whittlesay Buell. Her parents believed in education for girls, and home-schooled Sarah.

Her father suffered from wounds inflicted during the American Revolution, which made farming difficult. In 1811, he bought a tavern on Main Street in Newport and called it The Rising Sun.  Meanwhile, Sarah grew up and taught school.https://82d07c9b876f70f1efc37181ecf76574.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

The Rising Sun

She married David Hale, a lawyer, at the Rising Sun on the day before her 25th birthday. The couple had five children before David died nine years later. Sarah Josepha Hale wore black to mourn him for the rest of her life.

The year after her husband died, she published a book of poems with financial help from his Freemason Lodge. Four years later in 1827 she subsequently published a novel that dealt with slavery, called Northwood: Life North and South.

THANKSGIVING

Back then, the United States had only two national holidays: Washington’s Birthday and Independence Day. Only New Englanders celebrated Thanksgiving, and each of the six states scheduled its own date to celebrate from October through January.

An 1859 fashion plate from Godey’s Lady’s Magazine

The success of Northwood: Life North and South got Sarah Josepha Hale the job as editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the biggest women’s magazine before the Civil War.

She wrote editorial after editorial in her magazine urging Thanksgiving be celebrated as a national holiday. Finally President Abraham Lincoln acquiesced in 1863, thinking the holiday would help unify the nation after the Civil War. By then Sarah Josepha Hale was 74 years old.

But how to celebrate the new national holiday? Sarah Josepha Hale had the answer in one chapter of Northwood: Life North and South. It included a detailed description of a New England Thanksgiving dinner, which became a template for the rest of the country.

THE FEAST

She described a long table covered in a white damask tablecloth. Every child had a seat;”‘the more the better, it being considered an honor for a man to sit down to his Thanksgiving dinner surrounded by a large family.”

Roasted turkey, stuffed and basted, took center stage at the head of the table.

She then described an enormous amount of food: leg of pork, loin of mutton, sirloin of beef, vegetables, gravy, a goose, ducklings, pickles, preserves, a chicken pie – and the “celebrated’ pumpkin pie, an ‘indispensable part of a good and true Yankee Thanksgiving.” Every place had a wine glass and two tumblers, with a slice of wheat bread on top of an inverted tumbler. For desert they had plum pudding, custards, pie, cake, sweetmeats and fruits.

To drink, they had homemade mild spirits: currant wine, cider and ginger beer.

In deference to an English visitor, the family had coffee after the meal. Sarah Josepha Hale wrote approvingly of the innovation.

Sarah Josepha Hale subsequently lived for another 15 years after her great accomplishment.

She also wrote and edited children’s books. In 1850, Mary Had a Little Lamb appeared in Poems for Our Children.

Her many other achievements include dozens of other books. She helped with the founding of Vassar College, the restoration of Mount Vernon and the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument. She died on April 30, 1879.

Richards Free Library

Today, the Richards Free Library in Newport bestows the annual Sarah Josepha Hale Award on a New England writer. The first honoree was Robert Frost in 1956.  Most recently, the 2021 award went to Sy Montgomery.